Window to Genius: New Einstein Papers Reveal Struggles With Fame

You can explore Albert Einstein's digital brain with a new app, but you can learn more about the man's mind in a new volume of collected papers released today. The papers bring Einstein's thoughts and writings between 1922 and '23 to the public for the first time.

Consisting of more than 100 letters and 36 research documents, lectures, discussions, and reports, the papers show Einstein struggling with fame, attempting to speak Hebrew in British Palestine, and almost completely forgetting to mention that he received the Nobel Prize.

“It is a very busy time in Einstein’s life, he’s travelling a lot,” said historian Diana Kormos-Buchwald of Caltech, who works with the Einstein Papers Project. The scientist is away from his home in Berlin for seven months out of the total 15 covered in the new volume, which includes a poetic travel diary covering his visit to Japan, Palestine, and Spain.

The documents also include Einstein wrestling with important scientific concepts, such as the quantum mechanical revolution that was happening at the time, and his own work on Special and General Relativity. His fame as a scientist growing, Einstein tried to promote pacifism and intellectual ideals. But he also struggles with the fact that “the wider public, and politics, have long since taken control of my theory, and my person, and have tried somehow to adapt both to their own purposes.”

Wired was able to take a special sneak peek at the 44-page intro to the volume, which is available for purchase from Princeton University Press. Here, we take a look at some of the highlights from the new documents. The full volume will be digitized for the web and available in a year at the Einstein Archive Online, though you can browse other selected documents such as Einstein's 1930s U.S. travel diary.

Paris Visit

In a highly anticipated visit, Einstein travels to Paris to deliver a popular lecture series on Special and General Relativity at the College de France in early April of 1922. Though the trip and the lectures were extremely successful, Einstein’s documents reveal that it was also a period of high anxiety.

It was only a few years since World War I had ended and formal relations had not yet been reestablished between Germany and France. Einstein feared that he would be seen as a representative of Germany, writing that “my visit to Paris would have more adverse than favorable consequences” and might even be construed as “an act of betrayal.”

He also knew there could be demonstrations — similar to ones he had earlier witnessed in his home country — regarding his being a pacifist, an internationalist, and a Jew. “Einstein was keenly aware that he is a controversial person not only at home but also abroad,” said Kormos-Buchwald.

Besides his political ideals, Einstein’s scientific theories were still in their infancy. His work on Special Relativity had been first published in 1905 and his paper on General Relativity was only six years old at this time.

During his lectures, at least one person criticized the theories as lacking in common sense and being contrary to all known scientific concepts of time and space. Einstein’s French colleagues immediately spoke up to defend the theories but incidents such as this are a reminder that Einstein’s ideas took a long time to be understood and accepted.

Death of a Friend

On June 24, 1922, right-wing extremists assassinated Germany’s foreign minister, Walther Rathenau. The event shocked Einstein deeply and marked an important event in his life.

Rathenau had been a good friend of Einstein, who had urged him to visit Paris despite his doubts. In a letter of condolence to Rathenau’s mother, Einstein wrote that Rathenau had been “not just as a man of great understanding and ability to lead, but also as one of the great Jewish figures to offer up their lives to the ethical ideal of reconciliation among peoples.”

Einstein was notified that he, too, was on a list of possible targets by ultra-nationalists. Friends warned him that he should stay quiet and out of the public eye. In the fearful wake of the assassination, Einstein informed Marie Curie-Sklodowska that he would be resigning from the Prussian Academy of Sciences and told Max von Laue that “officially” he was already away from Berlin, though he was physically still there.

During the summer, Einstein went into a sort of hiding, living with his sons in a cottage outside Berlin. Like many academicians, he contemplated leaving his university post for a career in industrial consulting. He wrote to a friend who owns an electrical company that he was considering buying a house in Kiel, a small town away from Berlin, and coming to work in his factory.

But upon “calm reflection” Einstein decides that there wouldn’t be much for him at the factory and reverses his decision to pull out of public life.

Einstein in the East

The bulk of the documents in this period pertain to Einstein’s five-and-a-half-month trip to the Far East, Palestine, and Spain. The international journey was mostly paid for by the Japanese, who invited Einstein to deliver a scientific lecture series in Tokyo, and six popular lectures in several other cities.

During the trip, Einstein kept a travel diary, which is being published for the first time. Intended as a travelogue for his stepdaughters, Einstein wrote daily in the diary and occasionally accompanied his text with drawings of volcanoes, boats, and fish. “It is a candid account of what he sees and how he feels on this trip,” said historian Diana Kormos-Buchwald. “He enjoyed the long periods of quiet and contemplation.”

Einstein’s kindness and care for the plight of others shows through in his writings. After taking a rickshaw in Colombo, he described being “very much ashamed of myself for being a part of such despicable treatment of human beings but couldn’t change anything.”

But even as a persecuted Jew, his European racial ideas make a mark in the journal. The Chinese he described as an “industrious, dirty, numbed people” and that “it would be a pity if these Chinese were to push out all other races. For the likes of us the mere thought is unspeakably boring.”

His time in Japan seems to have been much more enjoyable, as his arrival was greeted by an enormous crowd shouting “Einstein! Einstein!” and “Banzai.” Einstein deeply appreciated Japan — he loved their gardens and the aesthetics of Japanese architecture. He described the Japanese as “similar to Italians in temperament, but even more refined, still entirely steeped in their artistic tradition, not nervous, full of humor.”

Image: Einstein drinking sake in Japan. Courtesy of the Estate of Kenji Sugimoto

The Nobel Prize

Before leaving for the Far East, Einstein received several letters asking him to reconsider his travel plans since there would soon be “news from Stockholm,” said historian Diana Kormos-Buchwald.

This news could only mean one thing – Einstein was to receive the Nobel Prize in physics. Einstein decided to go to Japan anyway, skipping his chance to be at the Nobel ceremony, and was informed while traveling that he had been awarded the Nobel for 1921. Interestingly, he failed to note in his diary that he had been given this highest of honors.

The award ceremony proceeded without him but Einstein still received the large monetary prize that came with the Nobel. He got 32,653.76 US dollars, which at the time was roughly equivalent to forty-nine annual combined Berlin salaries. Einstein gave part of the money to his first wife and his two boys from his first marriage. This had been stipulated in a special clause in their divorce agreement.

At the same ceremony that Einstein did not attend, the famous physicist Niels Bohr was given the Nobel Prize in physics for 1922 (the Nobel committee had not awarded the prize for two years because of instability following WWI). While Einstein is known for having struggled with the quantum mechanics that Bohr helped develop, and the two famously fought throughout the 1920s, his letters to Bohr reveal a completely different side.

“What we see in this volume is how admiring Einstein was of Bohr and vice-versa,” said Buchwald. In one document, Einstein wrote that he considered Bohr “the greatest contemporary genius in physics.” For his part, Bohr expressed fear that he would be given the Nobel Prize before Einstein, a turn of events that he considered simply unacceptable. Bohr was also upset that he would be at the ceremony while Einstein would not, to which Einstein replied that he was proud that they could both get the prize at the same time.

The Scientist in the Holy Land

On his way back from the Far East, Einstein made a special visit to Palestine, then under protection of the British. Einstein was a cultural Zionist as of 1918 onwards and was committed to the idea of there being Jewish institutions of higher learning in the Holy Land.

Einstein stopped in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, and several kibbutzim during his Palestinian visit. He gave the inaugural lecture at the Hebrew University’s future site on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. He even tried his hand at speaking in Hebrew, though the pronunciation was difficult and he expressed regret at not being able to lecture in “the language of his people.” He visited the Western Wall and wrote a famous line about the ultra-orthodox Jews, his “dull ethnic brethren with their faces to the wall bend their bodies to and fro in a swaying motion. Pitiful sight of people with a past but without a present.”

In Tel Aviv, Einstein attended a reception at City Hall, where he was welcomed by Mayor Meir Dizengoff and named the first honorary citizen of the city. According to the press, the streets were lined with throngs of people eager to see the famous scientist.

Image: Einstein with leaders of the World Zionist Organization in New York in 1921. Wikimedia

Travels' End

Einstein ended his long trip with a visit to Spain. There he was greeted by the Spanish royal family and given honorary degrees. He returned to Berlin after to be reunited with his wife and children.

Though this period in Einstein’s life was full of momentous events and travels, it also marked a difficult period and perhaps foreshadowed the fact that he would never find peace in Germany.

“He continues to feel that he needs to be active, to put his shoulder to initiatives that he thinks are worthwhile,” said historian Diana Kormos-Buchwald. “But at the same time he will be attacked if he is too outspoken.”

Because of the growing antisemitism, Einstein would never be a spokesman for his German colleagues, and he will never head a major organization in his home country. A bit more than 10 years after these writings, Einstein will come to America and decide not to go back to the Nazi regime he left. But he will continue to work on his scientific research and push for global peace.

Image: Einstein and his wife Elsa during their travels. Courtesy of the Estate of Kenji Sugimoto